and now. for the general happenings in october post. the non travel, non cake, non quilt, non adventure happenings. to kick things off, i’ll begin with a little campfire cookout smores type party we had for the kiddos. there was chili too. but i have no photographic evidence. just these pics of the smore’s table and the fire.
i managed to hold off for the entire month of september before doing any halloween/autumn decorating. (this does not include natural decorating like allowing the 900 spiders who make their webs all over our house to do their thing, or letting the pumpkin vine in my front yard grow rampant with its fancy pants squashes). but, in october, i loaded up the girls and hit up roger’s nursery for an assortment of gourds, pumpkins and mums, to adorn our front porch. you can see glimpses of the results in my autumn quilt post and later in this post when the girls pose for halloween pics. 🙂
hazel is loving school. and i really like her school and teacher. each quarter the kiddos have to do a book report project. for the first project, the kiddos had to make a diorama or a puppet. hazel read a magic treehouse book and wanted to make a puppet based on one of the main characters. she designed it herself and did *most* of the cutting. i provided support, guidance, and hot glue duties. she’s pretty proud of the results.
so. over the past few months, i have been attempting to reclaim my health. mental and physical. i have been on a rollercoaster with weight since isaac was born. in the last few years, i have lost a bunch of weight a few times while on the keto diet, and gained it back a bunch plus one times, while decidedly bingeing while off the keto diet. i knew i needed a different plan and then i listened to several podcasts by max lugavere. i’ve been churning through his books and trying to implement a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle.
i’ve also, much to my children’s dismay, been trying to make sweeping changes to the eating habits of the entire family and set them up for a healthy life. we have cleared out a lot of the junk and are trying to eat more real foods. they really hate me. you can see it in the faces of the older two. i like to think they will thank me someday. but for now. pure despising.
anyways. for me. it’s been a slower transformation than when i was strictly keto, but i’ve been building muscle in the gym and even though i haven’t lost that much weight, i feel so much better and i’m losing inches. i’m also loving not stressing about carbs, as long as they come from veggies. on keto, that squash would be a big no-no. but mostly, i eat a lot of salads that look like the one below. and then, every now and then, i allow for a delicious treat, like this homemade apple crisp anna and i whipped up.
ok. enough about diets. boring right?
obviously. the end of october brought halloween. isaac is too old for such things. anna was even on the fence until the last minute. sigh. anyways. hazel was a character from a video game. among us i think? and anna was a blowup chicken. which was absolutely hilarious. anna went to a party at a friend’s house, and hazel and i went trick or treating with our friends, where she acquired a massive pile of loot.
and. now for the most miscellaneous of the miscellaneous. here we go…
dinner at the blowing rock resort weekend, gifted to us by dereks parents. look how excited we all are about family time.
hazel’s presentation requesting chores. weirdo. a cookie cake anna made for our friend maddie’s birthday. and hazel’s first ever school photo.
some facetime shenanigans with holden, where he’s demonstrating possible pumpkin carving options. hazel, collecting arcade tickets, at one of her many class birthday parties (and one of two on the same day, her wet hair because she had already been to a pool party). and isaac with his new bills gear. he’s all in and i love it.
and lastly. the usual collage of photos of ruby. bills fan. snuggler. quilt tester. hopeful retriever. and most of all. a very good sleeper.
and this concludes october and all that it entailed. only three more months and i’m all caught up. (despite the date on this post, it is definitely the end of january as i type it up).